package org.apache.velocity.tools.view;

/*
 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
 * or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
 * distributed with this work for additional information
 * regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
 * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
 * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
 * with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 *   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
 * software distributed under the License is distributed on an
 * "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
 * KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
 * specific language governing permissions and limitations
 * under the License.
 */

/**
 * Interface to simplify and abstract tool handling.
 *
 * Implementations of this class should hold both the context
 * key for the tool and sufficient information to return
 * an instance of the tool.
 *
 * @author Nathan Bubna
 * @deprecated Use {@link org.apache.velocity.tools.ToolInfo}
 * @version $Id: ToolInfo.java 534692 2007-05-03 02:18:39Z nbubna $
 */
@Deprecated
public interface ToolInfo
{


    /**
     * @return the context key for the tool
     */
    String getKey();


    /**
     * @return the fully qualified classname for the tool
     */
    String getClassname();


    /**
     * Returns an instance of the tool.
     *
     * Instances returned may be new on each call, pooled, or
     * the be same instance every time depending on the
     * implementation.  The object passed to this method may
     * be used to initialize or create the tool that is returned,
     * or it may be null if no such data is required.
     *
     * @param initData an object that may be used to initialize the instance
     * @return an instance of the tool
     */
    Object getInstance(Object initData);


}
